The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,287

growls and then turns and sprints for the backdoor.

Dismayed, I start after him, but the flashing lights and screeching sirens outside the bakery, stop me mid-stride. So, I let him go.

But as I turn back to deal with Weston and disaster that’s bubbling over in the bakery, I have a terrible feeling that I’ll never see that little boy again.

At that thought, my heart breaks, too.

One Year Later

PALESTINE, EAST TEXAS

Chapter 6

Palestine

Regan

“Reggie, are you sure you know where you’re going? We’re in the middle of nowhere.” My friend Matty peers futilely out of her window at the fathomless dark. while we zip down the winding back roads. that were that cut through the dark forest.

“We’re in Jerusalem, Texas and the people who live here would be pretty offended to hear you call this little pearl, nowhere,” I drawl in an exaggerated twang.

“A pearl? Wow, the dark must hide all its charm,” Matty, quips dryly.

“And the machete wielding mad- men,” Jack chimes in from the back seat.

“You two are such city girls, you’d think you’d never been out in the country before.” I chide, tongue in cheek. I haven’t even been camping before. I think these woods are creepy as hell.

“So are you, your $1000 cowboy boots don’t make you an expert, okay?” I can hear Matty’s eye roll without looking at her.

“No, but they’ll sure make me feel like one if we run out gas and have to walk. Good luck running from coyotes in those four-inch Manolo's—hey,” I yelp and arch away when her fingers dance over my ribs to tickle me.

“Are there really coyotes out here? Do they eat people?” Jack asks, nervously.

I groan with exaggerated impatience “Calm your tits, tricks, we’ve got plenty of gas and I know where I’m going. I promised you an adventure and I’m delivering. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

Matilda and Jacqueline, aka Matty and Jack are my best friends from freshman year. We all had internships at Wilde World this summer. They’ve been staying with me at my family’s house this week. And we’ve been having the time of our lives. My mother seemed to have mellowed and except for her horror over the way I wore my hair, she barely had a word to say about anything.

Growing up, Houston’s humid summers made my hair impossibly frizzy and my mother would drag me to the African hair braider on West Alabama to get my hair braided every week. In the fall and winter when the air was dryer and cool, we spent Saturdays getting our hair rolled, blown out and then pressed with a flat iron.

It was an ordeal. But in Tina Wilde’s eyes, an unruly coiffure was a sign of internal disorder. One of the things I looked forward to most about leaving home was autonomy over my own hair.

In the weeks before I left for SMU, I spent hours reading Black hair blogs. i learned my hair was considered a 3C texture and figured out which products were best for it and went down to Solid Gold on W. Bellfort to buy them.

Before I left, we spent half the day at the beauty salon getting it pin straight, the way she liked it.

The first thing I did after she dropped me off on campus was wash my hair. I walked out of my room and headed to orientation with it loose and free for the first time in as long as I could remember.

I stopped to ask someone for directions. She gave them to me and when I said, “Thank you” the girl responded with, “What are you?”

I laughed and answered, “An Aquarius,” tongue in cheek because it was such a vague question.

She gave me an impatient sigh and spoke in a slow, deliberate tone. “Are you, like…Dominican, or something?”

“Nope, I’m from Texas.” My ignorance was feigned, but only because I wasn’t sure how to answer.

If she’d asked who I was, the answer would have rolled off my tongue. I’m Regan Naomi Wilde - daughter, sister, dreamer, womanist, ally, writer, reader, rebel.

But what I was? I’d never given much thought to. In Houston, my family’s history is practically local lore and even though my grandfather is Irish, we were raised by our mother and have always thought of ourselves as Biracial Black people.

Over the course of my first week on campus, I found myself being asked that question, “What are you?” repeatedly. The response to my ambiguous and vague answers was, almost universally, disappointment. And it only made me